Suburban S12 to the rescue

MNGB

MNGB

Tractorologist
Senior Member
Member
Well 53 hrs without power is no fun we toughed it out for the first day thinking the power would be back on anytime but Friday evening my brother brought his Harbor Freight generator over and we ran extension cord to the refer & chest freezer and to charge the laptop batteries well Saturday morning about 10 AM it quite no juice checked the circuit breakers nothing so what to do then I thought I have a front mount 4000 watt generator for the Suburban so got the generator installed and filled up the fuel tank (one of 3 times) set the RPM's so the needle was in the middle of the little green area on the gauge plugged in the cords and we had electricity again the old S12 ran 12 hrs with 3 stops for gas and oil check did good did add about 1/2 a qt of oil after 9 hrs.
Follow up on my brothers HF generator turns out it has GFI's located in the center of the plug-in receptacles my brother didn't know about them and I sure didn't notice them anyway his generator is up & working

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Our power was only off for about 4 hours. Didn't hook up the 3 point inverter but would have by morning if the power was still out.
We did see a small tornado north east of us but didn't hear of any damage in that area.
Gary glad you made it through the storm without anymore damage.
 
Now that’s improvising Gary especially during the dilemma. I’ve seen a few of the Sears generators but they looked real bad so I passed. I’ve always wanted one. That’s a lot of hours on the tractor especially running the generator. I bought HF’s 6500w generator about two years ago but only had to use it once for about two hours. I’ll have to check my receptacles for a GFI. Glad you got through everything safe.
 
I bought a HF 6500 w generator 20 years age and it worked good to power my camper but I loaned it to friends for their camper and they returned it in non working condition and I will check it for GFCI. My problem with it now is I don't have the strength to start it.
 
Cvans said:
Our power was only off for about 4 hours. Didn't hook up the 3 point inverter but would have by morning if the power was still out.
We did see a small tornado north east of us but didn't hear of any damage in that area.
Gary glad you made it through the storm without anymore damage.
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Thanks for posting, Chris! Was pretty worried as it sounded like your area was his pretty hard. How far from Castlewood are you? That town took a hard hit. All I know is you and that town are in the Watertown area. Glad you didn't have bad problems.

DAC

MNGB said:
Well 53 hrs without power is no fun we toughed it out for the first day thinking the power would be back on anytime but Friday evening my brother brought his Harbor Freight generator over and we ran extension cord to the refer & chest freezer and to charge the laptop batteries well Saturday morning about 10 AM it quite no juice checked the circuit breakers nothing so what to do then I thought I have a front mount 4000 watt generator for the Suburban so got the generator installed and filled up the fuel tank (one of 3 times) set the RPM's so the needle was in the middle of the little green area on the gauge plugged in the cords and we had electricity again the old S12 ran 12 hrs with 3 stops for gas and oil check did good did add about 1/2 a qt of oil after 9 hrs.
Follow up on my brothers HF generator turns out it has GFI's located in the center of the plug-in receptacles my brother didn't know about them and I sure didn't notice them anyway his generator is up & working

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Very cool setup, Gary! 9 hours under a load is quite a workout for that engine but sounds like it did the job with no problems! Glad you had a plan!

DAC
 
Cvans said:
I'm about 14 miles SW of Castlewood. It is about 11 miles south of Watertown and 4 miles east. Haven't been over there but it sounds like they took a pretty good hit.
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I don't know if there were fatalities in Castlewood, Chris but the town got much destruction. Saw a drone video of it. It would be hard to imagine no deaths, but sure hope not. Glad it missed you.

DAC
 
I've not heard of any fatalities in this area. And yes we were fortunate. The way it looked coming in I thought it was going to be much worse. It's the first time I've videoed a front coming through. It was making the weirdest sound as it approached. I've not experienced anything like it before. Undulating moaning sound.
 
We dodged a tornado back in the early 70’s about a quarter mile from us. We watched it turn and go parallel from us. It was a bad one and damaged a whole town just a few miles away. It was one of the most eeriest sounds of silence, the sky turned orange and dark then the sounds like a massive train going by. Glad you all escaped any damages.
 
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